This week I led a debate in Parliament on access to Child Trust Funds for disabled young people.
The unfairness of the current arrangements was highlighted to me by local resident Andrew Turner who has been a tireless campaigner after his son was locked out of his Child Trust Fund (CTF).
Young people can access their CTF savings on their 18th birthday. However the families of young people with learning disabilities unable to manage their money have to apply through the Courts. This can be a prohibitively lengthy, costly and complex process.
More than 31,000 disabled young people are thought to have been locked out of savings accounts worth £73m.
The Minister met Andrew and me last year and subsequently steps were taken to ease the process: moving some of it online, waiving fees and creating a “toolkit” for parents. However, much more needs to be done – the process still involves completing 93 pages over multiple forms, and engaging with time-pressured GPs or social workers to complete the mental capacity assessment.
I was pleased to have secure the debate, with Andrew and many campaigners there in person to see it and hear the Minister’s response. My main call is for the extension of the Department for Work and Pensions Appointee scheme to cover Child Trust Funds – a safe and protected way already used by many families to manage benefit income for their disabled child.
In one simple move this would make official a route already provided (at risk) by forward leaning CTF providers to the families of disabled young people. It would extend it to all funds and allow them to advertise – helping to get millions into hands that really need extra help.
The Minister committed to make the current scheme work better. He also committed to look at our proposal with DWP. He warned this may require a change in the law but - as I was pleased to point out in my response - that is what Parliament is for! It is a pleasure to work with a really committed campaigner to try and effect change and we are hopefully continuing to move the dial on what is a really difficult – but solvable - problem.